Communication system and method including rich media tools

ABSTRACT

The rich media communication system of the present invention provides a user with a three-dimensional communication space or theater having rich media functions. The user may be represented in the theater as a segmented video image or as an avatar. The user is also able to communicate by presenting images, videos, audio files, or text within the theater. The system may include tools for allowing lowered cost of animation, improved collaboration between users, presentation of episodic content, web casts, newscasts, infotainment, advertising, music clips, video conferencing, customer support, distance learning, advertising, social spaces, and interactive game shows and content.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to multimedia communications, and moreparticularly, to a rich media communication system based on usercombinations of computer graphics, video, still images, audio, and text.

Communication formats have evolved from text to interactive audio-visualcommunications. Recent virtual reality models generally involve thecreation of a shared-space world in which the persons involved in theexperience each represent a character in the shared-space world. Theuser representations, often referred to as avatars, in general consistof video representations or of graphic representations that are animatedby a mouse or keyboard. Such virtual reality models often have beenlimited to real-time interactive communications. Such scenarios andrepresentations limit the creativity and expression available using richmedia communication formats.

Accordingly, there exists a need for a system and related tools forproviding rich media communications. The present invention satisfiesthese needs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a system, and related method,having tools for generating and presenting rich media communications.The tools allow improved and lower cost rich media communications.

The invention may be embodied in a rich media communication systemhaving a theater and a player. The theater includes a representationassociated with a person. The representation provides a choice of visualpresence for the person. The player presents the theater at a remotelocation.

An alternative embodiment is a rich media theater controller having atheater window and a presentation control. The theater window has abackground presentation scene. The presentation control selects acharacter for a presentation in the theater. The character presentationmay be selected from an avatar, a blue screen cutout of the character,or a plain video presentation.

The theater window may have a media target onto which the person maydirect media, such as a video stream or audio, for display or play. Thevisual representation may be an avatar representation that is driven byvisual sensing of the person. A rich media messaging directory serviceor an online directory may be used for locating other users capable ofcommunicating with rich media presentations. The rich mediacommunication system may include a status window indicating rich mediacommunications received, the user's visibility to other users, theuser's availability to other users, and the user's automatic response torich media communication messages from other users. The rich mediacommunication users may enter into user defined communities organized inhierarchical levels. Also, a theater window may be published to a richmedia website.

The rich media communication system may include a message center havinga message reader. The message reader may have a text message window anda rich media presentation window. The rich media window may be toggledoff such that a user may first read only a text message in the textmessage window before requesting transmission of a rich media messagefor presentation in the presentation window.

In another embodiment, the rich media communication system includes aserver infrastructure, a content client, and a plurality ofcommunication clients. The server infrastructure provides web hosting,message hosting and communication services. The content client has anauthoring tool for generating a rich media communication. The pluralityof communicator clients display the rich media communication at remotelocations using the server infrastructure.

Other features and advantages of the present invention should beapparent from the following description of the preferred embodimentstaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate,by way of example, the principles of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an image of an application window for a communication systemhaving rich media tools in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a image of a presentation control window for display in theapplication window of FIG. 1, having a variety of rich media targets andcommunication channels for generating a personalized rich mediacommunication.

FIG. 3 is an image of a player window for presenting a personalized richmedia communication.

FIG. 4 is an image of a file manager window of theaters for use in therich media communication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is an image of a file manager window of avatars for use in therich media communication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is an image of a file manager window of rich media files for usein the rich media communication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 is an image of a message center window of an inbox for use in therich media communication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 8 is an image of a message center window of an outbox for use inthe rich media communication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 9 is an image of a message reader window for presenting apersonalized rich media communication provided as a message.

FIG. 10 is an image of an editor window for generating avatar images foruse in the rich media communication system of the invention.

FIG. 11 is an image of a status window for use the in the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 12 is an image of a card editor window for use in the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 13 is an image of an address book window for use in the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 14 is an image of a directory window for use in the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 15 is an image of a directory window for use in the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 16 is a block diagram of the architecture of the rich mediacommunication system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 17 is a block diagram of the architecture of a personalcommunicator of the system of FIG. 16.

FIGS. 18A and 18B show a block flow diagram of rich media communicationacross a communication channel in accordance with the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The rich media communication system of the present invention provides auser with a three-dimensional (3D) communication space or theater havingrich media functions. The user may be represented in the theater as asegmented video image or as an avatar. The user is also able tocommunicate by presenting images, videos, audio files, or text withinthe theater. The system may include tools for allowing lowered cost ofanimation, improved collaboration between users, presentation ofepisodic content, web casts, newscasts, infotainment, advertising, musicclips, video conferencing, customer support, distance learning,advertising, social spaces, and interactive game shows and content.

The communication system may use existing Internet protocols,communication channels and bandwidth reducing techniques to allow richmedia communications over limited bandwidth channels. For example, atheater may be created which has an individualized space with mediatargets and an image or representation of the user. The theater space istransmitted to a receiver only once. The user representation may berepresented by an avatar animated using low-bandwidth control signals,or alternatively, by a bandwidth reducing video cutout.

The rich media communication system of the invention allows each personto create his own world in which he is presented to others. The person'sindividual creativity may provide enhanced entertainment and attentionretaining value to the communications space.

The rich media communication system of the present invention may beembodied in an application window for a communicator shown in FIG. 1.The communicator window 10 is composed of a menu bar 12 and anon-interactive background 14. A variety of communication tools may beinvoked in the application window, which tools arise as child windows onthe background. The communicator's application window has three globalmenu options: file 16, edit 18, and window 20. In addition to the globalmenu, a global toolbar may be used for the application window options.

Under the file menu 16, a previously saved session file or environmentmay be opened 22, the current session may be saved 24, or the programquit 26. Under the edit menu 18 are context sensitive cut, copy, andpaste. Also, an option exists for editing user preferences. Under thewindow menu 20 are options to open the variety of child window tools. Asdiscussed in more detail below, the tools may include a player 28, acontroller 30, a chat module 32, a monitor 34, a status window 36, aneditor 38, a message center 40, directories 42, a card editor 44, anaddress book 46, preferences 48, a block list 50, a message reader 52,and a message composer 54. Through the window menu option, acommunication tool may be invoked and an associated window pops up onthe background. As shown in FIG. 1, the player 28, the controller 30,the monitor 34, the message center 40, the address book 46, and the chatmodule 32 have been invoked. The individual tool windows may bepositioned as desired by the user and may be placed in an overlappingformat as is common to typical window applications.

The controller window 30 is shown in FIG. 2. The controller allows auser to control the content that is presented to other users as sessionsor messages. The controller window may also show the user what otherusers may currently view. The controller window may be formatted withthree buttons, 56, 58 and 60, that open file manager windows. The threefile manager windows are the theater file, the avatar file, and themedia file manager windows.

In the center of the controller 30 is a display region 62 that providesa working area for constructing a rich media communication session. Thecontroller may provide a visual representation of a user using fourbuttons, 64, 66, 68 and 70, that gives the user media control of theuser's appearance. The buttons are radio buttons that immediately switchbetween available visual modes. The modes include an avatar mode, avideo mode, a cutout mode, or a show nothing mode. If a mode is notavailable in particular theater, the associated button is grayed out.

The controller window 30 may be organized as a theater that provides astage on which a representation 72 of the user may be displayed andprovides media targets, 74 and 76, on which selected media from a filemanager (FIGS. 4-6) may be placed by the user. The theater may beselected or changed by selecting a theater from the theater file menuand dropping the theater into the controller presentation window. Anavatar may be selected from the avatar file manager and dropped it ontothe stage of the theater. In the theater, shown in FIG. 2, the avatarmode has been selected. A user may select a media file from the mediafile manager and drag and place it onto a media target. The media may bea video, a still image, or audio file. When media is placed on a mediatarget, it is either displayed or played in the media target. Media maybe presented in the targets by selecting media from the media filemanager and dropping it onto a particular media target or by droppingthe media onto the theater. When a media file has dropped on thetheater, the theater places the media into the first available mediatetarget as designated by the theater designer. If an audio file isdropped onto the stage, the audio is directed to a speaker icon 78 andthe audio file played. If the audio file is dropped onto non-audiotarget, the audio file is nevertheless played. The media targets may beeither 2-D or 3-D panes as specified by a particulars stage of thetheater. A special media target is the speaker icon next to thepresentation the window. This media target receives and plays audioinformation only. The user may right click the mouse over a media targetto invoke a pop-up menu having the following options: open file foropening a media file for display in that particular target, orproperties for display of the media. For example, the display propertiesmay include a stretch, crop, playback rate, or show all frames.

The controller 30 also includes control buttons for controlling themedia in the targets. The particular media target is selected byclicking on the target and its properties may be controlled using thecontrol buttons. If no immediate target is currently selected, the mediacontrols are grayed out.

The controller 30 includes a camera button 86 which, when toggled,brings up a camera control user interface overlaid on top of the window.The controller may also include a loudspeaker button 88 that controlsthe volume of the audio coming from the user's microphone. Thecontroller also includes a behavior button 90 which, when invoked, popsup a pop-up menu of all the available behaviors for a currentlydisplayed avatar. The user may then select one of the behaviors for theavatar. The pop-up menu also shows any hot keys associated withparticular behaviors. The controller also includes mutually exclusiveradio buttons, 92 and 94, for move/select. When the select button isselected, a mouse click on an object causes the media controls to bedirected to that target. When the move button is selected, a mouse clickon an object brings up a move interface on top of the object. Also,object translation and rotation may be performed using mouse clicks andor drags.

The controller 30 includes a recorder for savings of a user's session.The recorder includes buttons, 96, 98 and 100, for saving the recordedsession as a file, making a message out of the recorded session, ormaking a web page out of the recorded session. The controller alsoincludes a directory button 102, an address book button 104, and afriend's button 106.

The monitor window 34 (FIG. 1) is generally used in conjunction with thecontroller. The monitor window is used to monitor the quality of datawhen the video cut out modes are selected, and the performance of thevisual sensing software when the avatar mode is selected. The monitorwindow includes three radio buttons for choosing between display of thelive video coming from the user's camera, the live video associated witha blue screen cut out of the user, or the live video with sensingcontrol points overlaid on it showing the performance of a tracker foranimating the avatar. The monitor window also includes a volume sliderfor controlling the user's volume.

The player window 28 is shown in FIG. 3. Rich media presentations aredelivered to a user's player for display. The player includes buttons,108, 110, 112, 114 and 116, for getting or showing a user's card, forprivacy or blocking, for camera control, and a slider 118 for volumecontrol.

The file manager includes three buttons, 120, 122 and 124, for togglingthe file manager between the theater file manager 126, the avatar filemanager 128, and the media file manager 130. The theater file manager126, shown in FIG. 4, displays a thumbnail associated with each theater.A theater may have more than one configuration, and these configurationsare collected into one object. The avatar file manager 128 is shown inFIG. 5 and the media file manager 130 is shown in FIG. 6. In the mediafile manager 130, the user is shown an icon for every file in thecurrent file directory which may be dropped onto media target. The iconsor symbols indicate whether the file is a video, still image, or audiofile. Media files may be dragged and dropped onto media targets in thecontroller window. The file manager also includes cut, copy, paste anddelete option under an edit menu available in the media file manager.

The message center window 40 is for handling rich media communicationmessages. The messages may be either just text, text with attached richmedia, or only rich media. The inbox 132 of the message center is shownin FIG. 7. The inbox and outbox may be selected using two radio buttons,134 and 136, near the top of the message center. When the inbox buttonis selected, the message center window will show what is in the user'sin box, and when the out box radio button is selected, the messagewindow shows what is in the user's outbox. A new message button 138opens a message composer window allowing the user to create a newmessage. A reply button 140 opens the message composer window with thesender of the currently selected message in the “to” field. A connectbutton 142 allows the user to attempt to open a live connection with thesender of a currently selected message. If the live connection issuccessful, the sender will appear in a new player window 28. A deletebutton 144 permanently deletes the currently selected message. A blockbutton 146 adds the sender of a currently selected message to a blocklist. The currently selected message is immediately deleted and futuremessages from the sender are also deleted. After a sender placed on theblock list, the sender will not exist again in the inbox of the user.

The message list 148 is a columnar table of all the messages that theuser has received. Using a mouse to click on any of the column headingssorts the message list by that heading. Double clicking the mouse on thesubject of the message opens that message in a new message readerwindow. If a rich media attachment is included in the message, an iconwill be displayed in a media icon column. Rich media sessions which havebeen included as an attachment and which have been downloaded willappear as an icon in a file column. Rich media sessions which have notbeen downloaded may be marked for downloading in a download column. Atriangle icon 150 associated with the words “download manager” isprovided in the message center window 40. When the download managertriangle icon is selected, associated buttons are provided for allowingthe user to control downloading of rich media to a local hard disk. A“get attachment” button 152 allows the user to download rich mediaassociated with the currently selected message. A “get markedattachment” 154 button allows a user to download rich media in markedmessages. A “get all attachments” button 156 allows the user to downloadany rich media which has not been downloaded. A stop button 158 allowsuser to halt the download process. A downloading message indicator 160may show how much more of a rich media component is left for downloadingboth as a visual indicator and as a percentage. The current downloadspeed also may be indicated.

By selecting an outbox button 136 of the message center, as shown inFIG. 8, the user is provided with a list of the messages that the userhas sent to other users. A send another button 162 allows the user tosend a message to additional users. This button brings up a messagecomposer with everything filled in with the selected message except the“to” field. An address button 164 allows the user to open an addressbook of received user cards. Buttons 166, 168, 170 and 172, are providedto play, file, delete and view messages. The other buttons of themessage center performed as described above with respect to the inbox.

The message reader window 50 is a two-part window that allows a user toplay messages. When the reader is selected or a message is selected forplaying, the first top portion 174 of the reader indicates whom themessage is from, the subject of the message, and associated messagetext. The size of the rich media component for downloading is also shownin the message window. The user may toggle the second half 176 of thereader window, which allows the user to display the rich media portionof the message. When the rich media portion 176 is selected, the mediaplayer opens in the bottom portion of the window and the rich mediastarts streaming and playing in the media player window. A downloadindicator 178 shows the progress of the rich media download.

An editor window 38, shown in FIG. 10, allows a user to create customavatars, new theater stages, and to edit other media. The editor windowincludes five sub or child windows. Each child window is selected usingan appropriate radio button 180 at the bottom of the editor window. Eachchild window has its own user interface that allows the user to add theassociated media, avatar, or theater. The theater editor allows the userto create a custom theater. The user may change the texture mapped onparts of the theater, may bring in new objects. Alternatively, the mediaeditor allows the user to launch helper applications that provideediting of video, audio, video with audio, and still pictures.

An avatar editor window allows a user to generate an avatar that looksand appears similar to the user. A wizard allows the user to select ahead geometry that is similar to the head geometry of the user. A newavatar is generated based on an image of the user. Alternatively anexisting avatar may be edited to the satisfaction or the user. Theavatar may be animated or driven by wavelet-based facial motion captureas described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/188,079 (WO 99/53443A1), which is incorporated herein by reference.

The avatar window includes a wizard that leads the user through asequence of steps for allowing the user to improve the accuracy oftracking of the avatar tracker. The avatar wizard may include a tutorface that prompts the user to make a number of expressions and varyinghead poses. A position is taken for each image and facial features areautomatically located for each face image. The user has the opportunityto manually correct the positions of the automatically located features.

The status window 36, shown in FIG. 11, displays concise informationregarding the user and the user's friends who are currently online. Thestatus window shows whether the user has received new rich mediamessages and allows the user to select his online visibility. Forexample, the user may select to be visible on white and yellow pages, tocurrent cardholders, friends, or the user may select invisibility. Inaddition the user may select to whom he is available. The availabilitymay range from available to everyone, available for cardholders,available for friends, or unavailable. The user may also select how hisautomated call response will react to incoming calls. For example, thecall response may be auto accept, caller ID, busy, or a message that theuser will call right back. The field also shows a user's identity or ID.The concise nature of the status window information allows the statuswindow to reside permanently on a users desktop.

A user card editor window 38 is shown in FIG. 12. User cards are aconvenient means for allowing the users to exchange their coordinatesand parameters. A user may appear under several different user IDs. Foreach ID, the user may provide the card to friends and other users. Theuser's ID generally includes the user's nickname, address, phone, email,a web page URL, and any comments that the user may provide. The cardeditor may also show thumbnail of the user in a rich media environment.A white pages button 182 allows the user to be listed in the whitepages. A friends button 184 allows predetermined friends of the user toview whether the user is online.

An address book or card manager 46 is shown in FIG. 13. The address bookincludes tabbed fields, 184 and 186, indicating to whom the user hasdistributed cards and from whom the user has received cards. Severalcolumns indicate whether the cards are associated with friends, alongwith the card's user ID, nickname, and the date the card was received orsent. The address book has buttons for searching for nicknames or users188, connecting with a particular user 190, sending messages to users192, sending cards to users 194, adding users to the address book 196,deleting users from an address book 198, blocking users 200, and editingthe user's properties 202.

A directory 42 associated with the rich media communication system isshown in FIGS. 14 and 15. The directory includes an online directory 204associated with a hierarchal organization, a white page directory 206,and a yellow page directory 208. The online directory 204 allows theuser to roam between the hierarchal levels. The user may be in only onelocation at a time. Users at they location are listed by their user IDor nickname. User may leave a card in order for other users to leave amessage for him after the user has left an area. A button in thedirectory allows the user to toggle between all members a location andlive members at a location. A user may directly contact a live member inthe directory.

The hierarchal levels of the directory may be cities, neighborhoods,houses, and rooms. Cities and neighborhoods may be put in place byserver staff. Houses and rooms may be built by users. Each hierarchallevel has an information button. When activated, a rich media messageplays describing the location. To build a house, a user clicks on ahouse builder button next to a neighborhood, and to build a room, a userclicks on a builder button next to a house. Rooms in houses may havebulletin boards upon which users may leave or read messages. Entering aroom is similar to entering a conventional chat room. Each live memberof the room or house appears as a thumbnail with his theater next to hisname.

A block diagram of an embodiment of a rich media communication system210 of the invention is shown in FIG. 16. The system includes a richmedia server 212 and a number of rich media clients 214. A user creatinga rich media communication has a client that includes to a web browser216, a personal communicator 218, and an authoring tool 220. Theauthoring tool includes a creator studio 222 that receives live input224 and stored media 226. The live input may be from a camera,microphone, keyboard or mouse. The stored media may be in the form ofvideo, audio, still images, or 3-D models. In addition, additional mediamay be obtained from a connection to the Internet 228 or from otherconsumer electronic devices 230.

The server includes a web server 232, message hosting 234, andcommunication services 236. The server also includes resourceinformation and parameters for each user allowing other users to engagein direct communication with a user based on the parameters stored onthe server.

Clients of other users may include a personal communicator 218 havingonly a player window or may include the authoring tools described above.A client side personal communicator 218 is shown in more detail in FIG.17. The communicator has links to the server 212 through messageterminus 238, real time terminus 240, and a connector 242. Media isinput from the live input 224 or from the stored media 230 into theauthoring tool or personal creator 222. The media is encoded into astream as a real time format or as a message format. In the real timeformat, the stream is directed to the communicators of other users. Inthe message format, the stream is directed to a message center 244 thatstores the message 246 and provides a message composer 248 and messagereader 250.

A flow diagram of the rich media communications data or bit stream isshown in FIGS. 18A and 18B. Media is input into a multiplexer 252 whichadds timestamp data and composes as a bit stream 254 after separatingthe data according to the data type features. The data includesinformation on the user's representation (video cutout or avataranimation values) and the user's audio and chat text messages. Themultiplexer 256 composes the bit stream and provides the bit stream toeither a network transmit layer 258 or an off-line message file 246. Thetransmitted bit stream is received by other users and a demultiplexer260 decomposes the received bit stream into separate data streams. Thedata streams are separated into individual media elements which areprovided to render scheduler 262. The render scheduler provides themedia elements to a player 28 or external renderer 264.

Although the foregoing discloses the preferred embodiments of thepresent invention, it is understood that those skilled in the art maymake various changes to the preferred embodiments without departing formthe scope of the invention. The invention is defined only by thefollowing claims.

1-41. (canceled)
 42. A rich media communication system, comprising: auser interface having a background presentation scene with rich mediatargets onto which a user can direct rich media content, and havingselectable graphical representations associated with the user; a serverto provide the user interface, having the rich media content and aselected graphical representation of the user therein, at a remotelocation; and a directory to locate users that are capable ofcommunicating with each other via their respective user interfaces usingrich media presentations of rich media content in conjunction with theirrespective selected graphical representation, wherein users areorganized into user-defined groups in the directory.
 43. A rich mediacommunication system as defined in claim 42 wherein the rich mediacontent includes a video stream that can be placed onto a particularmedia target.
 44. A rich media communication system as defined in claim42 wherein the rich media content includes audio media that can beassociated with a particular media target.
 45. A rich mediacommunication system as defined in claim 42 wherein the graphicalrepresentations includes a three-dimensional avatar representation thathas selectable behaviors and that is driven by visual sensing ofgeometric features of the user.
 46. A rich media communication system asdefined in claim 45, further comprising a sensor to perform the visualsensing of the user using wavelet-based feature tracking.
 47. A richmedia communication system as defined in claim 46 wherein the sensor maybe trained with varying expressions of the user.
 48. A rich mediacommunication system as defined in claim 42, further comprising aneditor to allow construction of a personalized graphical representationthat is based on an image of the user.
 49. A rich media communicationsystem as defined in claim 42 wherein the directory includes the user'spersonalized address book that includes a listing of users arranged inhierarchical levels, wherein one of the users can act as a moderator fora level and can control access to that level including blocking accessby a particular user.
 50. A rich media communication system as definedin claim 42 wherein the directory includes user blocking capability suchthat a user may block rich media communications from selected otherusers.
 51. A rich media communication system as defined in claim 42wherein the directory includes at least one rich media card having atleast one user's rich media communication parameters, the at least oneuser being provided with capability to provide the card at selected oneor more locations in the directory.
 52. A method for rich mediacommunications, the method comprising: providing a communicator windowthat can present rich media content; presenting a particular characterin the communicator window, wherein the presentation of the particularcharacter is user-selectable from a plurality of different graphicalrepresentations, the selected particular character corresponding to auser of the communicator window; providing capability to switch betweendifferent graphical representations of the particular character duringcommunication in the communicator window; and organizing rich mediacommunications users in a directory of groups, each user beingassociated with their own respective independent communicator windowsthat can present rich media content and respective graphicalrepresentations.
 53. A method for rich media communication as defined inclaim 52 wherein the providing the communicator window that can presentrich media content includes providing capability to select a backgroundpresentation scene that contains a non-Earth-equivalent background. 54.A system, comprising: means for providing an independently customizableuser interface window having a representation associated with aparticular rich media communication user; means for providing a mediatarget in the user interface window onto which the particular user maydirect rich media content; means for communicating the user interfacewindow to a remote location; and means for organizing rich mediacommunications users in a directory of user-defined communities, eachuser being associated with their own respective independent userinterface having rich media content, the communities being organizablein hierarchical levels, at least one hierarchical level being associatedwith a moderator for that level.
 55. The system of claim 54, furthercomprising: means for receiving rich media elements from a plurality ofmedia sources and generating a multiplexed rich media communication bitstream; and means for transmitting the bit stream to a receiver to allowthe receiver to decompose the bit stream into rich media elements, andto render the rich media elements in the user interface.
 56. A richmedia communication system, comprising: a first window usable to invokea plurality of rich media communication tools, the rich mediacommunication tools including: a second window usable to allow a user ofthe first window to select a three-dimensional avatar representationassociated with the user and further usable to allow the user to controlpresentation of the selected avatar representation and of rich mediacontent to other rich media communications users; a third window usableto present rich media content associated with the other rich mediacommunications users, at least some of the other rich mediacommunication users being associated with their own first windows thatare usable to invoke rich media communication tools; and a hierarchicaldirectory to organize the rich media communications users into userdefined groups.
 57. The system of claim 56, further comprising a fourthwindow to present messaging information that is communicated between theuser and at least one of the other rich media communications users. 58.The system of claim 56 wherein the second window is further usable toallow the user to select a non-three-dimensional representation of theuser, including two-dimensional representations, textualrepresentations, and audio representations.
 59. The system of claim 56wherein the hierarchical directory includes at least one hierarchicallevel that is associated with a moderator for that level.
 60. Anapparatus, comprising: a user interface usable to invoke a plurality oftools, the tools including: a first tool usable to allow a user of theuser interface to select from among a plurality of graphicalrepresentations associated with the user and further usable to allow theuser to control presentation of a selected graphical representation andof rich media content to other rich media communications users, thefirst tool further being usable to allow the user to switch betweendifferent graphical representations associated with the user during acommunication session on the user interface; a second tool usable toallow the user to create at least one of the selectable graphicalrepresentations associated with the user; and a third tool usable toallow the user to control presentation of graphical communications fromother rich media communications users that have their own userinterfaces; and a hierarchical directory to organize the rich mediacommunications users into user defined groups.
 61. The apparatus ofclaim 60 wherein the first tool is further usable to allow rich mediacontent to be placed onto rich media targets on the user interface forpresentation to the other rich media communication users.
 62. Theapparatus of claim 60 wherein the hierarchical directory includes atleast one hierarchical level being associated with a moderator for thatlevel, the moderator comprising one of the rich media communicationusers and having capability to control other users' access to thatlevel, at least some of the hierarchical levels providing capability viausers' user interfaces to allow users to provide at user-selectedhierarchical levels a rich media card having at least one user's richmedia communication parameters.